Doom, has just received a major blessing (update) in the form of support for the new Vulkan API. According to id Software, Vulkan support for Doom has officially been made available for owners of the game.
Based on Guru3D’s tests, the Radeon RX 480 is seeing significant framerate improvements when running Doom on the Vulkan API – all thanks to the recent Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.7.2 driver. Meanwhile, switching over from OpenGL to Vulkan doesn’t seem to do anything to Nvidia’s GTX 1070, which should be fixed once Nvidia releases a new driver update. Of course, the framerate improvements should be streamlined to all compatible GPUs once appropriate drivers have been made available by both companies.
For those who aren’t aware of the greatness that is Vulkan, allow us to explain it briefly: Vulkan is a new API (application programming interface) made by the Khronos Group. By using this new API, applications will be able to perform noticeably faster simply because of Vulkan allows for more “direct” control of the GPU and distribution of load on individual processor cores. For PC gamers, this means better gaming performance on high to mid-range PCs, and less tears for owners of low-end PCs.
More information regarding Doom’s latest update can be found here.
